Recent News Clips

1.18.19 IEEE Spectrum"A 3D Bioprinter Makes a Spinal Cord Implant in 1.6 Seconds"
3D bioprinting -- building tissues by putting down layers of cells and other materials -- has led to the manufacturing of human tissues including corneas, skin, and blood vessels. Now, a team at the University of California San Diego, is raising the bar. In a paper published this week in the journal Nature Medicine, they describe a 3D-printed spinal cord implant that restored function in the hind limbs of rats with spinal cord injuries. It is the first 3D printing of a complex central nervous system structure, according to the authors.

1.16.19 ABC 10News - San Diego"UC San Diego researchers use stem cells, 3D-printing to treat spinal cord injuries"
Researchers at UC San Diego published a study this week, showing that a mix of 3D printing and stem cell therapy can be used to treat severe spinal cord injuries. Scientists from the schools of engineering, biomedicine and neuroscience collaborated on the project, which they say is a huge breakthrough for people with paralysis. In tests on rodents, the 3D spinal cord and stem cells spurred new neuron growth and helped restore function.

1.15.19 The San Diego Union Tribune"Stem cell-filled implant restores some spinal cord function in UC San Diego animal study"
Stem cell-filled implants helped repair spinal cord damage in animals, according to a study led by UC San Diego scientists. If all goes well, the implants with neural stem cells could be ready for testing in human patients in a few years. Rats with completely severed spinal cords regained some voluntary motion after getting the implants, said the study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.

1.14.19 WIRED"Bio-Printers Are Churning out Living Fixes to Broken Spines"
For doctors and medical researchers repairing the human body, a 3D printer has become almost as valuable as an x-ray machine, microscope, or a sharp scalpel. Researchers say that bio-printed tissue can be used to test the effects of drug treatments, for example, with an eventual goal of printing entire organs that can be grown and then transplanted into a patient. The latest step towards 3D-printed replacements of failed human parts comes from a team at the University of California San Diego. It has bio-printed a section of spinal cord that can be custom-fit into a patient's injury.

1.14.19 Times of San Diego"UCSD Scientists Demonstrate Use of 3D Printing with Stem Cells for Spinal Repair"
UC San Diego researchers have for the first time used 3D printing technology to create a spinal cord and implant it with neural stem cells into rats with spinal cord injuries, the university announced Monday. The implant is designed to promote nerve growth and regrowth for victims of severe spinal cord injuries, according to the researchers. For the rats in the study, the 3D printed spinal cords spurred tissue growth, the regeneration of nerve cell extensions called axons and expansion of the implanted neural stem cells into the rat's natural spinal cord.

1.14.19 National Geographic"12 innovations that will revolutionize the future of medicine"
We've seen an explosion of tech-driven gains and innovations that have the potential to reshape many aspects of health and medicine. All around us, technologies from artificial intelligence (AI) to personal genomics and robotics are advancing exponentially, giving form to the future of medicine. These include a wearable patch, smaller than a postage stamp, that keeps the beat -- heartbeat, that is. It measures blood pressure deep within the body by emitting ultrasonic waves that pierce the skin and bounce off tissues and blood, feeding data back to a laptop.

1.14.19 Chemical & Engineering News"Custom 3-D printed implants heal spinal cord injuries in rats﻿"
With the help of a 3-D printed hydrogel implant, researchers have demonstrated that they can restore leg movement in rats with severe spinal cord injuries. Using a fast, light-based printing technique, the team tailored the implants to precisely fit a cut or tear in a spinal cord, guiding nerve cells to grow across the injury site and reestablish neural connection.

1.4.19 Design News"Bioprinting Technique Makes It Easier to Study Human Tissues and Organs"
Researchers have developed an easy-to-use bioprinting technique for creating human tissues and organ models that they hope will be used by scientists to improve healthcare and pharmaceutical solutions for disease and other medical conditions. Bioengineers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) developed the method, which works with natural materials and produces artificial but lifelike organ tissue models.

12.21.18 Forbes"Groundbreaking Research In 2018 That Furthered The Study Of Alzheimer's, Cancer And Blood Pressure"
In large part because of the support of the NIH, scientists across the United States and around the globe conduct wide-ranging research to enhance health, lengthen life and reduce illness and disability. This research includes a project, led by Sheng Xu, assistant professor at the University of California San Diego, to engineer a blood pressure sensor that uses ultrasound technology and can be worn as a flexible skin patch. The technology could replace other methods of monitoring blood pressure in the future.

12.8.18 Inverse"Could the Future Be Powered by Salt? This Researcher Thinks It's Possible"
If battery innovation were a cocktail party, lithium ion would be the one sucking up all the oxygen in the room, telling too many jokes and barely letting anyone get a word in edge wise. But these lithium ion batteries aren't perfect, explains Shirley Meng, a nanoengineering professor at the University of California San Diego. They're expensive and require the use of cobalt, which can sometimes be a conflict mineral. Meng and colleagues recently started looking into the question of whether our infatuation with lithium ion might be overshadowing other more promising areas of battery research.

12.4.18 3D Printing Industry"University of California San Diego Researchers Develop 'Easy-to-Use' 3D Bioprinting Method for Living Blood Vessels"
Bioengineers from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) have developed a 3D bioprinting method that integrates natural materials which produce lifelike organ tissue models. The UCSD team used their method to create blood vessel networks capable of keeping a breast cancer tumor alive outside the body as well as a model of a vascularized human gut. The research, recently published in Advanced Healthcare Materials, aims to accelerate the production of human organ models to be studied for pharmaceutical drug screening.

12.4.18 Earth.com"Batteries made from sodium would be cheap yet powerful"
Today's Video of the Day from the National Science Foundation (NSF) describes the potential for batteries made from sodium, which would be cheaper and more powerful than lithium batteries. Materials scientist Shirley Meng of the University of California San Diego is leading a research team that has a vision of making sodium batteries a reality. The study is supported by the Ceramics Program within the Division of Materials Research at NSF.

12.3.18 3D Printing Media Network"UC San Diego develops easy-to-use bioprinting process for vascularized networks"
A team of bioengineers from the University of California San Diego is developing a bioprinting method that could enable scientists and pharmaceutical companies to easily create human organ models for research purposes and drug screening. At this stage in the research, the UC San Diego team has demonstrated the technique's ability to produce blood vessel networks that can keep a breast cancer tumor alive outside the body (ex vivo).

12.3.18 Chemistry World"New class of carbides could be toughest yet"
A new class of complex "high-entropy" metal carbides that incorporate five different metals has been developed by researchers in the US, who have shown the new materials can be significantly harder and more heat resistant than simple carbides.

12.1.18 Tech Briefs"New Laser for Improving Telecommunications and Computing"
The first laser based on the wave physics phenomenon called bound states in the continuum (BIC) has been developed. The technology could revolutionize the development of surface lasers, making them more compact and energy-efficient for communications and computing applications. The BIC lasers could also be developed as high-power lasers for industrial and defense applications.

11.26.18 Robotics Industries Association"Robots and AI in the OR"
In the operating room, robots help guide surgical instruments to precise treatment locations. They can repeat the same movements over and over again without fatigue, or remain completely stationary for long periods of time. Robots go where traditional surgical tools can't, and perform tasks unimaginable without computer assistance, sophisticated algorithms and advanced motion control technology. They make the impossible possible. Researchers at UC San Diego, led by electrical and computer engineering professor Michael Yip, are developing algorithms to help guide and eventually automate surger

11.19.18 C&EN"The chemical search for better white light"
To make LEDs that produce more natural-looking light, scientists are developing new phosphors. These are inorganic compounds applied to the dome-shaped cap covering an LED that alter the light emitted, giving it a more pleasing hue. Efforts to discover new phosphors have nearly always occurred through painstaking, trial-and-error experiments--for example, by using exploratory crystal-growth methods and combinatorial chemistry. A new study led by UC San Diego's Joanna McKittrick and Shyue Ping Ong suggests that computational screening may one day put the kibosh on the lab-intensive approach.

11.13.18 Science News for Students"Super-water-repellent surfaces can generate energy"
Scientists knew that they could generate electricity by running salt water across an electrically charged surface. But they could never get the process to make enough energy to be useful. Now engineers have figured out a way to do that. Their trick: Make the water flow over that surface much more quickly. They achieved this by making the surface super water repellent.

11.9.18 The San Diego Union Tribune"3D organ maps bring $14 million to UC San Diego's Kun Zhang"
UC San Diego bioengineering professor Kun Zhang has been awarded $14 million to build 3D digital maps of human organs, accurate to the single-cell level. The money comes in two grants from the National Institutes of Health. One grant for $8.7 million will fund work on a map of the entire human brain. The five-year-grant is from the NIH BRAIN Initiative. The other grant, for $5.3 million, is for mapping the lungs, kidneys, bladder and ureters. That four-year grant is part of a larger initiative called the Human Cell Atlas, which aims to "map the adult human body at the level of individual cells